Date: 4/5/26 12:39 am From: Naresh Satyan via groups.io <naresh.satyan...> Subject: [LACoBirds] Early season report from the Castaic lake area
Hi all,
This morning (Saturday 4/4), Armando Martinez, Jonathan Nakai and I hiked some trails on the west side of Castaic Lake. The habitat here is rolling hills with open fields of grass and low shrubs. We had good weather for much of the hike before it got pretty windy midmorning. The big highlight was a spectacle of several thousand Painted Ladies migrating through the area, along with a few other butterfly species in smaller numbers. We also had quite a lot of bird activity. There were a few migrants and several birds on breeding territories. Particularly interesting were 17 singing male Lazuli Buntings -- I've usually only been seeing such numbers in late April here. Other expected breeding species were also well-represented, though I was surprised not to find any Costa's Hummingbirds, and it seemed like some residents like Rufous-crowned and Bell's Sparrows had gone silent (presumably on nests?). We also found no Grasshopper Sparrows (as expected).
